came about and was adopted in this wise. In the
course of a couple of weeks the box of little garments arrived from
Barnesville, accompanied by a warm-hearted note from Jenny Rutherford.

The unpacking of the box--which was not a large one, though it seemed to
contain an astonishing number of things, most of them of great length and
elaborateness--was to Tom a singularly exciting event, so exciting that
he found himself wondering and not at all sure that he understood it.

When he opened the box--Mornin standing at his side, her charge in her
arms--he did it with tremulous fingers, and when, having laid one article
after another in a snowy drift upon the bed, he drew back to look at
them, he found it necessary after a few moments' inspection to turn about
and pace the floor, not uneasily, but to work off steam as it were, while
Mornin uttered her ejaculations of rapture.

"I never seen nuthin' like 'em afore, Mars' D'Willerby," she said with
many excitable giggles. "Dis yer chile's a-gwine to take the flo' shore
as yo' bawn! Sich a settin' out as dat is! She'll git ter puttin' on airs
afore she's a year ole. We'll hev ter give her a settin' down wunce 'n a
while to keep her straight. Mis' Rutherford, she wus boun' to do it up in
style, she wus!"

Tom took one hand out of his pocket and ruffled his hair with it, and
then put it back again.

"Your young mistresses now," he suggested, "I suppose they are about such
things as their mothers made for them."

"Lordy, dey's a heap finer, Mars' D'Willerby--a heap finer! Dey wus rich
folks' chillun, but dey never hed sich a settin' out as dis yere--not one
on 'em."

"They didn't?" said Tom, with secretly repressed exultation. "Well, if
they didn't, I guess she'll do. They are rather nice, I reckon--and I
meant they should be. Say, Mornin, suppose you dress her up and let me
show her to the boys."

He himself picked out the sumptuous long-skirted garments she was to wear
and watched with the deepest interest the rather slow process of her
attiring. He was particularly pleased with a wonderfully embroidered
white cloak and lace cap, which latter article he abstractedly tied on
his great fist and found much too small for it. His triumph, when she was
given to his arms, he did not attempt to conceal, but carried her into
the store with the manner of a large victor bearing his spoils.

"Now look here, boys," he announced, being greeted with the usual
laughter and jocular rem